The view of Longs Peak from the front porch of the William Allen White cabin in Rocky Mountain National Park. White used the cabin as a summer retreat from 1912 to 1943, and it is now used to house the park’s Artist-In-Residence.

Remember a time when tourists were few and far between, and everybody tried to figure out ways to attract them to the mountains? Me neither, but such was once the case with Rocky Mountain National Park. “Tourism … was woven into the fabric of Rocky from its earliest days,” writes Jerry J. Frank in this history of how Rocky Mountain National Park was created.

The state’s leaders wanted to preserve the area’s wildlife and scenic wonders, of course. But they also hoped to make the park “a great accessible and beneficient pleasure ground,” said one.

The Denver Chamber of Commerce threw its weight behind the creation of a park because it would be “of incalculable benefit to the business interests of the city,” wrote a Denver real estate agent.

“Making Rocky Mountain National Park” is a history of the park’s founding and its influence in creating the National Park Service. It highlights the sometimes cooperative, sometimes competitive interests of business and conservationists.

The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend

Bob Drury and Tom Clavin (Simon & Schuster)

The great Sioux chief Red Cloud was perhaps the most successful Indian leader of all time. He was the only Indian leader to defeat the U.S. Army in a war. The government actually sued him for peace.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he lived the rest of his life in triumph. The Indians ultimately caved in or were defeated by the white man’s forces. Unlike other Indians, Red Cloud “had seen his people’s future. He understood that he, and they, had been overcome by historical forces,” write authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin. If he was a brilliant war strategist, Red Cloud was less successful in securing government resources for his people.

That Red Cloud emerged as a leader at all was due to his courage and intellect. His alcoholic father died when Red Cloud was a boy, denying him the family connections he needed to succeed. But while a teen, he emerged as a warrior and strategist, which made him unusual among Indians who tended to fight independently.

“The Heart of Everything That Is” is a well-researched narrative that covers the panoply of Indian activity in the West during the second half of the 19th century, including descriptions of some pretty grim Indian atrocities.

Last Stand: Ted Turner’s Quest To Save A Troubled Planet

Todd Wilkinson (Lyons Press)

Media Mogul Ted Turner’s quest to make this a better world is almost as well known as his 10-year marriage to actress Jane Fonda. He’s one of the West’s biggest land owners and owns 1 0 percent of the country’s bison. He gave $1 billion to a foundation he set up to fund United Nations initiatives. (It’s run by former Colorado Sen. Tim Wirth.)

Failure to save the planet cannot be an option, Turner says. And if anybody can save us all, it just might be Turner, according to author Todd Wilkinson in a biography that borders on hagiography.

Wilkinson recaps Turner’s tumultuous life. His father, who sent Turner to military school at the age of 4, starved him emotionally. To prove himself, Turner built a media empire, captured sailing’s America’s Cup, married a movie star and got to know virtually everybody in the world worth knowing.

But that wasn’t enough, which is why he spends a huge chunk of his personal fortune on conservation, primarily in the West, and on improving the human condition. Known as “Captain Outrageous” for his outspokenness and his stunts, Turner is not always taken seriously or his motives considered altruistic.

“Last Stand” nonetheless is an interesting look at a man who, as much as anybody, is trying to make the world a better place.

If there’s one superhero character whose rise might be most tied to the events of World War II, it is Captain America, who emerged from the minds of legends Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and sprung forth from an iconic 1941 debut cover on which Cap smacks Hitler right in the kisser.